K: Sans universe

Sometimes I think I may be going deaf - overuse of earbuds being the culprit. The fact is though the opposite is quite true. I hear everything very well. When I play Guitar Hero, I have to turn the TV volume down to 1 so that the sound isn't blaring. Every morning I am awakened by the sound of aggressively slammed drawers against the wall into which I bury my face. There's no quiet in this house, no quiet in the world, maybe no quiet in my head. Maybe that's why I'll always come back here, eh? And so I put in the earbuds, turn up the iPod to have some control over the noise I'm hearing. There's not much the world can do to overcome MC5's Kick out the Jams when I let it go.

I've been having ideas for stories lately. Not long stories - if I were to do NaNoWriMo this year (God help me if I do) I'd write a collection of lengthy short stories. That's probably against the regulation but I'm not sure I care. After all, I wrote a memoir last year, and that's not part of the regulation. I may cheat by having all the stories focus on one character. I've only got a couple ideas so far. Both kinda cribbed from real life but with a fictional bent. For instance the first is called "Friday Nights at the Lost Lounge." You can imagine what it might be about. All the same, the events wouldn't be true to life and I'd have to make it a roman a clef (the real people are replaced with fake names, like in On the Road.)

It's a shame, too, that I should suddenly be so interested in creating things. I've left so many pots bubbling on the stove it's a wonder the kitchen hasn't burned down. There's Melancholy, and Curiosities, for starters. The memoir, which I never really intended or wanted to finish. A half-remembered novel idea called A Year of Holidays. A screenplay idea called Brainwreck. Other stuff. I was once writing a screenplay called "Work in Progress." I started it late in Grade 12 but abandoned it, particularly when I started working on Half-Past: The movie. I later realized it was basically the same movie as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but with 1/100th the funny. I had to let it go. It was about a writer (not a composer) who hates his day-to-day work (greeting cards, not TV series) and after getting dumped by his long-term girlfriend ends up in a period of creativity, especially as he meets a dream girl-type. It's not exact, obviously, and FSM is very much involved with its minor characters and Hawaiian setting, but it definitely put me off how the generic beats of the story were done way better there. I'm not saying I'll never do it. I had a fair bit done when I left off on it, then my harddrive melted and I lost it all. So I'd re-build it from scratch, probably funnier, thinking of FSM, years from now. I have enough ideas to sustain me, should I be in a position to get them done... but that's the problem. I need to know what I want to be writing at what time. That's why re-writing Half-Past was so much fun, because for the first time in years, I was writing for a purpose, not just an exercise. At the same time, it was a bit of a cheat, since it was already written anyway.

Then again... isn't everything already written? Haha, that's a convenient way of seeing things. Like it's all in my brain waiting to be recorded. No, I do a fair bit of writing on the page in the moment.

My favourite writing experience I ever had was when Ana asked me to come up with an idea for a movie, back in the summer of 2004 at the beginning of this blog. For the first time I had a reason to be writing. I worked obsessively on it and was pretty proud of the result. If I were to revisit Summer at Sixteen it would bear pretty thorough revision, (could be much funnier, for example) but I still like it a fair bit overall. And I'm proud of myself for having written it.

I had no idea I was gonna go off on that tangent. Neat. That's what I like about SWP, I rant and rave and eventually somebody reads it. I haven't been up to much lately. Eric came home, surprisingly, for the weekend. We watched two movies - Young People Fucking and Fight Club, the latter of which I was commanded to (after 8 years of putting it off) by a girl. The things I do for women; although watching a movie is hardly high up on my "annoying responsibilities" list.

It was cool hanging out with him for a while again. I don't sit around and miss him but it's nice when he comes home and I have someone to talk to around here, to joke around with. We went out to Valu Village yesterday to assemble the necessary items for my Lebowski costume; it turned out pretty well. He also got himself some facial hair for his costume, a Mexican dude. The man simply cannot grow a mustache.

Anyhow. I was hanging out with Amanda yesterday. I got the HMV job. That's good news, although it'll probably end up stressing me out, money is good. Plenty of people work and go to school. I just need to keep from running myself ragged.

I should end this entry soon. I have a lot to take care of today, including some extracurricular writing (reviews mostly, nothing I've described here,) and a lot of reading. Goddamn am I behind on reading. For reals. I hope the Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock isn't too long.

And the Shakespeare. My God am I behind.

Took a nice walk last night in the cool October weather. So many stars out. Somewhere nearby, some kids were having a party...

Keep on rockin'
-Scott